Miniature horses & ponies
Who doesn't find miniature horses and little ponies absolutely adorable? We most certainly do!
We feel very sorry for these tiny tots that end up at auctions and kill pens. When purchased by kill buyers, they get stuffed into stock trailers with full sized horses and get injured. It doesn't get any better when they arrive at the kill pens; they get shoved in with full sized horses and get beat up and starved down. Those that are not lucky enough to get saved, are sold by the kill pens to feed the carnivores at zoos. We try to help as many of these tiny ones as we can.
Sweet Pea
We found little Sweet Pea at a kill pen in Texas. She was AMHA registered and she was trained to be a therapy horse. She had experience wearing booties and visiting people in hospitals. This precious little 33" girl has a personality larger than life. She is bold, friendly and thinks she is a big horse. We have retained Sweet Pea to offer therapy to those in need with an emphasis on children with developmental issues and adults with PTSD. Holly hopes to use Sweet Pea in therapy soon, as she has her eye on becoming PATH certified.
DOODLEBUG
Doodlebug was rescued with her mother, Rose, from an auction when she was only 3 weeks old. Thankfully neither Doodlebug or Rose became sick after being dumped at the auction and they were able to come to PRRHR&S one month after they finished their quarantine. Doodle is a precious girl, Rose weaned Doodle on her own at 5 months and Doodle handled the transition from weaning and meeting new friends right away. She bonded up with baby Buttons and with Carson. At a year old, a wonderful family with 3 children came along who wanted to adopt Doodlebug. We thought it was the perfect home, but we received a call a few months later that the children had no longer been spending any time with Doodle and she was just out with their goats. We took Doodle back and were very sad to see a drastically changed Doodlebug. She came back angry, kicking and biting and very, very unhappy. This broke our hearts for her. It has taken some time for her to return to her former self. In light of this, we have decided to let Doodlebug remain in Sanctuary with us. We owe it to her to make sure she has a safe, happy life.
LILY
Rose had her baby! This precious little girl was born very quickly, but something wasn't quite right. She was very lethargic and listless, making us wonder if the birth was too fast. There is a condition called Dummy Foal Syndrome and Lily presented like that. It is a condition where the birth is usually too fast and the foal does not spend long enough in the birth canal receiving the squeeze that they need. Lily was listless, she had no suckle reflex and she just wanted to sleep. We put a phone call in to our trusted vet who said to not let her sleep too long and to do the Madigan Squeeze, which simulates being in the birth canal. Lily woke up 20 minutes later and sprung to her feet but her respiration was very elevated. We put another call in to the vet and did a video call so our vet could see Lily's respiration rate. We were told to monitor her closely and as long as she was nursing regularly and acting otherwise normal, then we should just watch and wait. By day four, Lily became listless so we rushed Lily to the vet hospital. It was a very hot day, and the trailer ride made Lily's temperature skyrocket to a dangerous 108!! The vet and assistants quickly rushed Lily into the air conditioning and doused her with rubbing alcohol to bring her temperature down. A blood panel was run and Lily had a slightly elevated white cell count and slightly elevated inflammation. Lily needed to stay at the vet hospital to be given antibiotics via IV. They set up 4 corral panels for Lily inside the examining room for Lily and her mom so that Lily could be in air conditioning. Since they really didn't know what was causing the high respiration and inability to regulate body temperature. Our veterinarian reached out to several of her colleagues and to her professors at university to ask them if they had seen anything like this before. Lily's bloodwork was normal the next day and she behaved like a normal, healthy newborn foal. Lily stayed at the hospital for almost 3 weeks with no changes to her high respiration. After scouring through resources, our vet determined that it was idiopathic, and for some reason the signals in the brain were telling Lily's bdy to breathe fast and hard. The vet learned that this happens with draft breeds sometimes and they eventually grow out of it, but it is vital that they be kept in air conditioning to help control body temperature and not further elevate respiration. We went out and bought a powerful room airconditioner unit and installed it in the window of Rose and Lily's stall before we brought Liliy home. St the highest Lily's respiration was 180, when normal for a foal is about 40. Most days her respit=ration stayed around 100. We continued to watch her closely, gave her alcohol baths which she hated and protested it by running around the stall and bucking with a look that could kill. Poor girl! Over time, Lily's respiration started to come down. It has bee very hot here in Texas and Lily has had to stay in her over sized stall in the air conditioning for her well being. It has been 3 months since Lily was born, and we are very happy to report that Lily's respiration is now down to about 70. She is happy, she is healthy and she is thriving. We are praying that she continues to show improvement as time goes on. We look forward to the day when she can go out and run and play like a normal horse. Lily has stolen our hearts. She is the sweetest baby, she is super friendly and she loves to climb in our laps, she loves to give kisses and to chew on our shirts. She is our little angel baby and we are so blessed to have Lily in our lives.
ROSE
We saw Rose and 3 week old, tiny baby Doodlebug at a slaughter pipeline auction in Texas. One look at that tiny baby and a momma who was doing her best to keep her baby away from other horses, and we knew we needed to step up and help them. We made sure to win the bid over the kill buyers who were buying for the kill pens. We had our hauler take them to quarantine, and keep a very close watch on them. Thankfully neither mom or baby got sick from the auction and they were able to come to PRRHR&S in a month.
Time flew by, as Rose took excellent care of her baby. When Doodlebug was 7 months old, Rose began the weaning process and we placed Rose and Doodlebug next to the other minis so that Doodlebug could get to know the little herd she was about to become part of. Doodlebug now lives with the other minis and is living her happy life.
It became evident that Rose had been bred back previous to our rescuing her, and Rose delivered a beautiful baby girl, Lily. Rose is an excellent mother and we are so happy Lily is thriving.